Due to the tension of the war in Qingzhou, Ma Chao did not dare to delay more, so he took Kong Ming and rushed straight to Jizhou. Jizhou has a frustrated town, and there are Zhao Yun, Zhang He and Huang Zhong in the north and south, respectively, and the three people are guarding it, which can be described as impregnable. Jizhou produces grain, and in the future, it will also be a logistics supply base for a decisive battle with the Kwantung princes, and its strategic significance is extraordinary.

Two days later, a group of people rushed to Yecheng through Chaoge, and were about to rush to Bohai County, when suddenly news came, Kong Rong sent Tai Shici to Pingyuan County for help, Pingyuan County ordered Liu Bei to lead an army of 3,000 to Beihai County, the thief Shuai Guan Hai was killed by Guan Yu, the thieves fled, and the danger of Qingzhou has been lifted.

Ma Chao was depressed for a while, and finally let the three brothers Liu Bei take the lead, but this did not affect his plan, Qingzhou belonged to the borderless land at this time, and he just took the opportunity to exterminate the Yellow Turban Thief to recover it. As for Kong Rong, it is easy to do, just arrange an official position for him in the court, anyway, that's what Cao Ying did in history.

After making up his mind, Ma Chao was not in a hurry to rush to Bohai County, but lived in Yecheng. Early the next morning, he took Kong Ming and Dian Wei to a Wu Fort in the east of the city under the leadership of Fu Zhu.

However, it is said that Kong Xi and Ma Jun have been staying in Yecheng to study and improve papermaking and printing, and after countless failures in the past year, there is finally a breakthrough in the revolutionary surname at this moment.

"I've seen the lord!" When the two heard that Ma Chao had come to inspect, they had already greeted them at the door.

Ma Chao smiled and said: "You two don't have to be polite, you have made great progress in papermaking and [***] printing, and I just want to see it today!" If so, Ben will be rewarded! ”

The two of them did not dare to shout, and several people entered the Wu Fort, only to see hundreds of young captives busy with their work. Under the guidance of Ma Chao, Kong Xi mainly used reeds, straw, and wheat straw as raw materials this time, and the process was extremely complicated, with dozens of them.

The soft ingredients are first chopped with a guillotine and then boiled in a large pot until the grass is soft. Then comes the most important process, which is manually pounded into a sludge to remove impurities and make pulp. Finally, the pulp is fished out with a bamboo basket, and each time it is a piece of white paper, the semi-finished paper is pressed with layers of wooden boards, and then the water is pressed out with rocks, and the finished product is dried after drying.

Ma Chao took a closer look, and couldn't help nodding secretly in his heart, papermaking is not an uncommon technology in later generations. At the end of the twentieth century, there were still many family workshops, reeds, weeds, tree trunks, bark, sawdust, bamboo, basically all plant roots could make paper, and the more times they failed, they always found the trick.

Kong Xi took out a roll of finished products and said: "Although soft material papermaking can reduce labor, everything has to be explored from scratch. ”

Ma Chao took a look, only to see that the texture is medium, the surface is smooth, the hair has been tested, the absorbent surname is not bad, the handwriting is not deformed at all, and there is no bleeding, which can basically meet the needs of writing and painting, but the fly in the ointment is that the thickness of the paper is large, and its toughness is better than the A4 printing paper of later generations.

After careful observation for a while, Ma Chao nodded and said: "Mr. Kong is really worthy of being the heir of papermaking, this paper can basically meet the needs of printing, but the thickness of the paper still needs to be improved, if the thickness can be reduced by fifty, not only can the output be increased, but also the thickness of the book can be reduced, the benefits are self-evident." ”

Kong Xi said: "This matter is easy, just enlarge the hole of the bamboo sieve to solve this matter." But in this way, the absorbent and solid surnames of the paper are slightly insufficient! After that, he turned around and flipped over for a while, found a roll of slightly yellowed paper and said: "My lord, please see, this batch of paper is the previous failure, and it is only because the thickness is not enough that it has caused inconvenience in writing!" ”

Ma Chao took a closer look, and saw that the handwriting on it had obvious signs of penetration, almost seeping into the back of the paper. The edges of his handwriting are full of tadpole-like ink, which greatly affects the beauty of the handwriting.

Ma Chao pondered for a while and asked, "Ruben will arrange two thousand laborers for you, how many sheets of paper can be produced in a day!" ”

Kong Xi thought for a while and said: "According to the current output, every group of fifty people, each group can make 1,000 pieces of paper a day!" After 2,000 people are proficient, they can produce 40,000 pieces of finished paper in one day! ”

Ma Chao's heart moved, and he said: "The efficiency of this method is too low, and the production in a group of five is too slow, and this method is easy for workers to learn all the processes of papermaking, and the confidentiality is seriously insufficient!" There will be a method that can not only greatly improve production efficiency, but also reduce the possibility of leakage to a certain extent! ”

Kong Xi said: "The lord will try to say it! ”

Ma Chao said: "You can separate the various processes, two thousand people work separately, each person is only responsible for one process, forming an assembly line, so that the proficiency of workers is greatly increased, and no one can participate in all the processes, even if someone escapes, it will not leak secrets, but also can greatly improve production efficiency, and it is not impossible to double the average per person." ”

Kong Xi nodded and said: "What the lord said is very reasonable, and he will definitely arrange this matter reasonably, but the paper at the moment is not perfect, I don't know what the lord means"

Ma Chao pondered for a while and said: "Time is not waiting for me, now that the textbook has been compiled, and the printing technology will be successful, it is completely possible to make paper on a large scale." In addition, the maturity of a technology is likely to take ten years, even decades or even hundreds of years of hard work, and we only need to create a precedent, which will be gradually perfected by future generations! Although the paper is thicker, it is not without benefits, first of all, it is wear-resistant, and it is suitable for preservation, so it can be promoted on a large scale. ”

Kong Xi nodded and said: "In this case, we will expand the scale of production according to the instructions of the lord in the next day, and it will be ready in less than a month!" ”

Ma Chao was overjoyed, stroked his palms and smiled: "That's right, the manpower and material resources needed can be solved by the public, and the general can also send a team of people to firmly guard this Wu Fort, and the confidentiality work is the top priority." ”

Subsequently, he watched with Ma Jun the [***] printing technology he had studied for several months. According to Ma Chao's requirements, Ma Jun first carved out regular script on a flat stone slab, and then pressed it into with the matching high-quality clay. In this way, the bottom layer is formed with a convex clay mold, and then these clay molds are cut into uniform pieces on the stone slab, and the slate and clay mold are placed together in a porcelain kiln to be fired into ceramics.

Although the life of the word mold made of ceramic is not long, the cost is low, the efficiency is high, and the typesetting only needs to be tightened with a fixed square, and it can be printed in large quantities by applying ink. A piece of ceramic lettering can be printed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times.

Solved the problem of [***] font mold, the next step is the problem of ink. In this regard, Ma Chao has already thought of countermeasures, only need to add a little resin to the thick ink to print, although the effect is not satisfactory, but the conditions are limited, and it is impossible to do everything perfectly. (To be continued.) )